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E 415 
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"WHAT 1 KNOW ABOUT 

HORACE GREELEY'S 



SEOESSIOI^, WAR AND DIPLOMATIC 



KECOKD. 

Copy 1 



A LEHER WRIHEN (NOT PUBLISHED) IN 1870, 



THURLOW AVEED 

TO 

THOMAS 0. ACTOK 



NIW YORK : 

JAMES McGEE, PRINTER, 647 BROADWAY. 
1872. 



The letter which is herewith submitted to the public coatain- 
ing Mr. Weed's reasons in declining to vote for Mr. Gbeeley 
when a candidate for State Comptroller in 1867, and in again 
with holding his vote from Greeley when a candidate for Con- 
gress in 1870, will, it is believed, attract general attention and 
approval. It is a calm review of Mr. Gkeeley's teachings and 
movements preceding and during Secession and Rebellion. 
3klr. Gbekley, is held largely responsible not only for Rebellion, 
but for the miUious of treasure and the rivers of blood which 
cost. The evidence adduced in justification of these charges 
drawn from the editorial columns of the Tribune ; and so 
nclusive is this evidence that no patriotic elector will fail to 
jnd in Mr- Weed's letter abundant reason for now withholding 
his vote from Mr. Gbeeley, as a candidate for President of the 
United States. 



New York, Oct. 10, 1870. 

Dear Sir : — A year ago you made an earnest appeal 
for my vote in favor of Mr. Greeley for State Comptroller. 
Assuming that I had strong personal reasons for refusing 
to vote for Mr. Greeley, you urged very properly that 
tliese should yield to public considerations. I readily 
acquiesced in this view of the question, and resolved to 
govern my action in accordance with it. I calmly exam- 
ined the relative qualifications of the two candidates. 
Mr. Greeley had been educated a printer, and had de- 
voted hhnselt exclusively to his profession. Ke had, 
therefore, no knowledge or experience in the duties of 
the office of Comptroller. I^or were his talents, his hab- 
its or his tastes adapted to financial duties. The idea 
that the editor of a leading daily journal could so divide 
his time between New York and Albany as to discharge 
the duties of Comptroller in addition to those of the 
editor, seemed to me not only impossible, but preposter- 
ous. It is scarcely necessary to say what is so generally 
known, that the office of Comptroller is altogether the 
most important, laborious and responsible in the State. 
I have personally known its incumbents for considerably 
more than half a century. Among them were Archibald 
Mclntj^re, John Savage, William L. Marcy, Silas Wright, 
Jr., Azariah C. Flagg, John A. Collier, Millard Fillmore, 
Washington Hunt, Philo C. Fuller, James M. Cook, 
Thomas Ilillliouse, etc., etc., all men distinguished for 
ability and industry, not one of whom ever attempted to 
attend to any other business, and all of whom found con- 
stant and full occupation, ph3^sical and mental, in the 
discharge of their public duties. Without, therefore, rec- 
ognizing other and strong reasons for withholding my 
vote for Mr. Greeley, I considered those whicli I have 
stated quite sufficient. 

In his opponent, William F. Allen, I found a capable 



and enlightened man, with some experience, much in- 
dustry, and peculiar fitness for the duties of that office. 
I had known him first as an able and useful member of 
our Legislature, and next as an eminently upright Judge. 
My only difficulty, therefore, in deciding to vote for Mr. 
Allen was that he was a Democrat, and a nominee of the 
Democratic party. But this objection was obviated in 
my mind by the fact — a fact well known to both political 
parties — that from the beginning of the Rebellion in 
1861, to the end of the war in 1865, Judge Allen was an 
avowed, earnest, active War Democrat, and this rendered 
it easy to cast my vote, as T did, in favor of "William F. 
Allen for Comptroller. 1 may add that, in subsequently 
voting for Mr. Allen for Judge of the Court of Appeals, 
my only regret was that at a time of almost universal offi- 
cial demoralization the State would lose the services of a 
fearless and incorruptible Comptroller. 

Mr. Greeley now turns up as a candidate for Congress 
from the district in which I reside. You again urge me 
to vote for him, and I have taken the subject into calm 
and serious consideration. Lifting my thoughts above 
all things merely personal, I have endeavored to ascer- 
tain M^hether Mr. Greeley, upon public grounds, is enti- 
tled to my vote. Having reached the conclusion that I 
cannot vote for Mr. Greeley, I will give you my reasons 
— reasons which constitute, in my own judgment, a per- 
fect justification — reasons which ought to deprive him of 
the vote of every loyal elector in the district. 

Mr. Greeley, for several months before the Rebellion, 
while that question was rife in the Southern States, was 
an avowed, earnest, and persistent secessionist. As the 
editor of a leading and widely circulating Republican 
journal, he exerted an influence at once powerful and 
malign. Indeed, but for that influence it would have 
been difficult, if not impossible, to have withdrawn North 
Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia from the Union. To 
show you that I do not state this point too strongly, let 
me refresh your memory with editorial extracts from the 
Tribune : 



{From the Tribune of November 9, 1860.) 

" If the Cotton States shall become satisfied thej can 
" do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting 
" them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolu- 
" tionary one, but it exists nevertheless. AVhen any con- 
" sidorable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve 
" to go out we shall resist all coercive measures designed 
" to keep it in. We hope never to live in a Kepublic 
" where one section is pinned to the other by bayonets." 

{From the Tribune, November 26, 1860.) 

" If the Cotton States, unitedly and earnestly, wish to 
"withdraw peacefully from the Union, we think they 
" should and would be allowed to go. Any attempt to 
" compel them by force to remain would be contrary to the 
" principles enunciated in the immortal Declaration of 
" Independence, contrary to the fundamental ideas on 
" which human liberty is based." 

{From the Tribune of December 17, 1860). 

" If (the Declaration of Independence) justified the 
" secession from the British Empire of three millions of col- 
"onists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify 
" the secesession of five millions of Southrons from the 
" Union in 1861." 

{From the Tribune of Februarij 23, 1861.) 

" Whenever it shall be clear that the great body of the 
''^Southern people have become conclusively alienated 
'-''from the Union, and anxious to escape from it, we 
" will do our best to forward their views." 

Such was the language of Mr. Greeley, and such the 
teachings of the Trihu7ie during the autumn and winter 
of 1860-1861, while secession and rebellion were at work 
in severing the Union, and while States like stars were 
dropping out of their orbits. A Governor of Soutli 
Carolina in urging that State to inaugurate treason in- 
formed his hearers that the New York Tribu7ie had 
openly declared that the Southern States had as clear a 
right to rebel against the Federal Government as the 
thirteen States in 1776 had to rebel against the Govern- 
ment of George the Third, adding that, "in this emerg- 
'' ency our M'orst enemies have become our best friends." 



6 

The State of Georgia held out long and manfully 
against the traitors in its legislature who advocated, the 
Ordinance of Secession, but finally and reluctantly broke 
from its moorings when Robert J. Toombs, in one of his 
vehement speeches, produced and read from the Kew 
York Tribune^ the articles from which I have now made 
brief extracts. Tou will see, therefore, that Mr. 
Greeley invited and encouraged the Southern States 
to go out of the Union ; that he promised them 
aid and comfort ; and that lie denied the right of 
the Federal Government to interfere. Why, then, is 
he not, up to the breaking out of the war, as obnoxious a 
secessionist as Jefferson Davis, or Senators Mason and 
Slidell ? Indeed, if there be any difference, Davis, Mason 
and Slidell occupy vantage ground, for Mr, Greeley has 
not the excuse of being a Soutliern man. 

"When the war commenced Mr. Greeley arrogantly 
assumed the right to dictate a policy for the Administra- 
tion, and to command the Army. Long before the Pres- 
ident, Secretary of War, or the Commander-in-Chief of 
the Army deemed it prudent to make a forward move 
ment, Mr. Greeley issued and reiterated in the Tribune^ 
his well remembered and ominous order of " On to Rich- 
mond." And such was its power over the minds of an 
impulsive people and an impatient Congress, that, wholly 
unprepared as we were, our army was prematurely forced 
into a disastrous battle. For that cruel slaughter of oui 
undisciplined troops, and for that humiliation to our Gov- 
ernment and people, Mr. Greeley, in a remorseful moment 
confessed himself " greatly to blame." 

Subsequently, during the darkest days of the Rebellion,, 
and especially when our armies were defeated, or at bay, 
the Tribune either howled for peace, or teemed with 
denunciations against the President or the Army Com- 
manders. In the gloomy Autumn of 1862, Mr, Greeley 
headed a radical raid upon the President in favor of an 
Abolition Cabinet. Wendell Phillips, who was brought 
to Kew York to further that movement, made the leading 
epeech. After expressing his belief that "Lincoln him- 



*' isclf is as honest as a man born in Ke:? tuck j can be,'' 
said : — " But I have no confidence in the counsels about 
'' him. I have no confidence in the views of your son of 
" New York, wlio stands at his right hand to guide the 
"vessel of State in this tremendous storm." Iti tlic same 
speech Mr. Phillips said, that in " December ISdO, James 
" Buchanan wrote a message to Congress which he sub- 
" mitted to William H. Seward, and from that time to 
" the 4th of March, 1861, no fortnight passed that he 
'* did not consult your New York Senator in regard to 
" the policy of the Government." " If the history of the 
" closing months is written over with treason, I say that 
" the Secretary of State (Seward) has his share of the 
" responsibility." 

Mr. Greeley who knew that this charge of treason 
against Mr. Seward was utterly untrue, made himself 
tacitly responsible for the calumny by following his lead- 
er with a brief speech, so cold and ic}^ as to dislieartren all 
the timid, and to awaken the indignation of all the earn- 
est friends of the Union. Mr. Greeley came forward and 
said : — '" Fellow Citizens : when this struggle commenced, 
'* I think I was not as gay and as sanguine as some of 
"you were. I did not believe if we had a Civil War at 
" all, it could be a little war. I did believe, and I believe 
" now, it might have been made a little war by striking 
" so soon, and striking so strongly, that it would not have 
" been a Civil War at all. We are now in the midst of 
" this war. I do not see the immediate result of the war. 
" I am not sanguine that under the leaders we have, the 
"management we have, an immediate triumph is at 
"all certain. We may have that, Ave are more likely 
" not to have that." 

Returning from Cooper Institute, where Messrs. Phil- 
lips and Greeley were delivered of speeches, to the Trib- 
une office, Mr. Greeley complacently issues the following 
comprehensive edict : 

" 1. Reorganize the cabinet, and compose it of seven of 
" the ablest and most loyal men in the 'whole country — 
" men who thoroughly believe in the war, and who do not 



"believe that loyal Americans ought to be treated as 
" chattels. 

" 2. Dismiss from the service every officer who persists 
" in cavilling at, and exciting hostilities to the policy of 
" the Government. 

" 3. Stop the coast survey, and shut up the West Point 
" Academy. 

" 4. Ciill out the uniform militia of the loyal States for 
" three months, and employ them to garrison Washing- 
" ton, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Louisville. 

" Such are our notions of the war. We cannot doubt 
" that our soldiers will speedily put down the rebellion, 
"if our generals will but let them." 

During the progress of the war none were more jubi- 
lant over our successes than Mr, Greeley, but when re- 
verses came his croaking voice was heard in shrill and 
discordant demands for peace. At a time when a series 
of discouraging defeats had occasioned intense solicitude, 
when Southern Traitors and ISTorthern Copperheads were 
rejoicing in the prospect of the destruction of our Govern- 
ment, Mr. Greeley, in a double-leaded editorial, said : 

"If after sixty da,ys more hard fighting the enemy 
" is not beaten, it will become the duty of the gov- 

" ERNMENT TO ilAKE PEACE OK THE BEST ATTAIN- 

" ABLE TERMS." 

Thus encouraged and stimulated by this cowardly da- 
mand for peace by the leading Republican journal, the 
enemy prosecuted the war with renewed confidence and 
vigor. 

Soon after this gratuitous, ill-timed and insolent de- 
mand for peace, Mr. Greeley, at the suggestion of a mud- 
dle-headed adventurer (Colorado Jewett), obtained the 
President's consent that he might make a peace pilgrim- 
age to Canada, where George N. Sanders and other trait- 
ors were liatching conspiracies and raids. With these 
congenial spirits he was so much pleased that he re- 
proached Mr. Lincoln for not confiding to him the power 
" of making peace upon the best attainable terms." And 
with Mr. Greeley were the conspirators so much charmed 



9 

that, one of tliein (C. C. Clay) drew up a call for a pub- 
lic meetiug in tke city of New York, commending Mr. 
Greeley for liis patriotic and laudable efibrts to negotiate a 
peace. That call was sent to New York by G, W. McLean, 
but fell into the hands of Kichard Scliell, a loyal Demo- 
crat, " who took the responsibility" of suppressing it. 
Jewett's letter to Mr. Greeley ran as follows : 

"Niagara Falls, July 5, 1864. 
" My dear Mr. Greeley : — In reply to your note I have 
" to advise, having just left Hon. George N. Sanders, of 
" Kentucky, on the Canada side, I am authorized to state 
" to you, for our use only — not the public — that the am- 
"bassadors of Davis & Co. are now in Canada v/ith full 
" and complete powers for a peace. And Mr. Sanders re- 
" quests that you come on immediately to me at the Cat- 
'* aract Honse, to have a private interview, or if you will 
*' send the President's protection for him and two friends, 
" they will come on and meet you. He says the whole 
" matter can be consummated by me, you, them, and 
*' President Lincoln. 

" Yours, W. C. JEWETT." 

"With no other or better reason or authority than this 
letter Mr. Greeley immediately assumed the language 
and authority of a diplomatist, and wrote a long, sugges- 
tive, pregnant letter to the President, of which the fol- 



lowing is an extract :- 



« New York, July 7, 1864. 



" I venture to enclose to you a letter and telegraphic 
" dispatch which I received yesterday from our irrepress- 
" ible friend, Colorado Jewett, at Niagara Falls. I think 
'-'- they deserve attention, as evidencing the anxiety of 
" the Confederates everywhere for peace, and, therefore, 
" I venture to remind you that our bleeding, bankrupt, 
" almost dying country which longs for peace — shudders at 
" the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further whole- 
" sale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood; 
" and a wide-spread conviction that the Government and 
" its prominent supporters are not anxious for peace,_ and 
" do not improve profiled opportunities to achieve it, is 
^' doing great harm now, etc. etc." (Page 572, Kaymond's 



" Life of Lincoln.) " Do not, I entreat you, fail to make 
" the Southern people comprehend that you and all of 
" us are anxious for peace, and prepared to grant liberal 
terms. 

" Mr. President, I fear that you do not realize how in- 
" tently the people desire any peace, consistent with the 
" national integrity and honor, and how joyfully they 
" would hail its achievement and bless its authors. 
" Yours truly, 

"HOEACE GREELEY. 
" Hon, A. Lincoln, President, Washington, D. C." 

Accompanying this letter was Mr. Greeley's plan of ad- 
justment, in which he proposed to pay four hundred mil- 
lion dollars, which sum was to be apportioned pro rata 
among the Slave States, and placed at the absolute dis- 
posal of their respective legislatures. In a subsequent 
letter, Mr. Greeley informed the President that Clement 
C. Clay, of Alabama, and Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, 
were the Peace Commissioners refeiTed to. Before the 
bubble burst, the following letter was received frem San- 
ders : — 

" Clifton House, Niagara Falls, C. W., 
" July 12, 1864. 

^^ Dear Sir : — I am authorized to say that the Hon. 
" Clement C. Clay, of Alabama, Professor James P. Hol- 
" combe, of Virginia, and George N. Sanders of Dixie, 
" are ready and willing to go at once to Washington, 
" upon complete and unqualified protection being given 
"■ either by the President or Secretary of War. Let the 
" permission include the three names and one other. 

" Very Respectfully, 
" GEORGE K. SANDERS. 
" Hon. Horace Geeelet." 

To Mr. Greeley's importunities Mr. Lincoln finally 
yielded, and in a letter to Mr. G. said : — 

"If you can find any person, anj'where, professing 
" to have any proposition of Jeiferson Davis in writing 
" for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union and 
" the abandonment of slaverj^, say to him, he may come 
*' to me with you, and that he shall have safe conduct to 
" the point where you shall have met him ; the same • if 
'' there be two or more persons." 



11 

That, however, did not satisfy Mr. Greeley, wlio j-e- 
qiured something more definite, and Mr. Lincohi after 
another letter, in which he said : — " I not only intend a 
" sincere effort for peace, but I intend that you shall be 
" a personal witness that it is made," sent his Secretary 
to jSTew York, with an authority to guarantee the safety 
of Mr. Greeley's Confederate friends in their proposed 
journey to Washington and back. In accordance with 
that authority, Mr. Greeley departed for Canada, with 
the following order in his pocket : — 

" The Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C. 

" The President of the United States directs that the 
" four persons M'hose names follow, i. e. the Hon. Clement 
" C. Clay, the Hon. Jacob Thompson, Professor James 
" B. Holcombe, and George N. Sanders, shall have safe 
" conduct to the City of Washington, in company with 
" the Hon. Horace Greeley, and shall be exempt from 
" arrest and annoyance of any kind from any officer of 
"the United States during their journey to the said city 
" of Washington. 

" By okder of the Pkesident. 

" John Hay, Major and A. A. G." 

On his arrival in Canada, Mr. Greeley despatclied 
Colorado Jewett with a letter to the Confederates, in- 
forming them that he had an order from the President 
guaranteeing their protection, and inviting them to ac- 
company him to Washington. Whereupon the moun- 
tain proved to be a mole hill. 

To Mr. Greeley's letter enclosing the President's pro- 
tection Messrs. Clay and Holcombe replied, expressing 
their " regret that the safe conduct of the President of 
" the United States has been tendered us under some mis- 
" apprehension of facts. We are not accredited to him 
" from Pichmond as bearers of propositions looking to the 
" establishment of peace ; but we feel authorized to de- 
" clare that, if the circumstances disclosed in this corres- 
" pondence were communicated to Richmond, we would 
" be at once invested with the authority to which your 
" letter lefers. We respectfully solicit, through your in- 



12 

'' tervention, a safe conduct fo Washington, and thence 
" by any route which may be designated, through your 
" lines to Richmond. We would be gratified if Mr. 
" George Sanders was embraced in this privilege," 

Any other man but Mr. Greeley, on finding himself 
thus duped and trifled with, would have thrown up 
his diplomatic sponge. But Mr. Greeley would "not 
" give it up so." He accordingly sent a telegram to the 
President, admitting that he did not find the gentlemen 
referred to so empowered as he was previously assured, 
and forwarding their request for the President's safe 
conduct, to Pichmond. 

To this telegram the President responded as follows : — 
" Executive Mansion, Wasliington, July 18, 1861. 

" To Whom it may Concejbn : — 

" Any proposition which embraces the restoration of 
'' peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the aban- 
" donraent of Shivery, and whicli comes by and with an 
" authority that can control the armies now at war 
" against the United States, will be received and coii- 
" sidei-ed by the Executive Government of the United 
" States, and will be met by liberal terms on substantial 
" and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof 
" shall have safe conduct both wavs. 

"(Signed), ABRAHAM LINCOLN." 

To this offer of the President, the Confederate agents 
replied in a long letter to Mr. Greeley, from which the 
following is an extract : — 

" If tliere is any citizen of the Confederate States who 
" has clung to a hope that peace was possible with this 
" administration of the Federal Govermuent, it will strip 
" from their eyes the last film of such a delusion ; or if 
" there be any whose hearts have grown taint under the 
" sufiering and agony ot this bloody struggle it will in- 
" spire them with fresh energy to endure and bear what- 
" ever may be requisite to preserve to themselves and 
" children all that gives dignity and value to life, or hope 
" or consolation to death. And if there be any patriots 
" or Christians in your land who shrink appalled from the 
" illimitable vista of private misery and public calamity 



13 

'' wliich stretches before them, we pray that in tlieir 
'' bosoms a resohition will be quickened to recall the 
'' abused authority and vindicate the outraged civilization 
'' of their country." 

And here, for the time being, ended Mr. Greeley's mis- 
erable Quixotic negotiations with George N. Sanders? 
Jake Thompson, etc., etc., for peace. Mr. Greeley, how- 
ever, left Canada with friendly feelings for the conspir- 
ators whose last letter to him expressed the hope that 
our people would " recall " the '' authority" which Presi- 
dent Lincoln had •' abused ;" and we have George San- 
der's authority for saying, that Mr. Ciroeley expressed his 
regret that President Lincoln's conduct had not been that 
of a gentleman. Sanders is not a witness on whose ver- 
acity I should rely ; but it is well known that Mr. Greeley 
was highly exasperated with the President. 

After Mr. Lincoln had been renominated in 1864 by 
the National Republican Convention, Mr. Greeley led a 
movement in favor of a radical Convention at Cleveland, 
Ohio, for the purpose of nominating a third candidate. 
He wrote private letters to leading Republicans in New 
England, urging them to join in this movement, a move- 
ment which could have no other effect than to surrender 
the Government of the Union into the hands of its ene- 
mies. This movement, in its design and purpose, was 
identical Mnth that which brought Breckenridge into the 
canvass of 1860. The disunionists of that day nom- 
inated Breckenridge for the purpose of defeating Douglas. 
The Radicals of 1864 nominated Fremont for the pur- 
pose of defeating Lincoln. Both of these movements 
were treasonable. The first because it contemplated re- 
bellion — and the last, because in the midst of war it 
sought the overthrow of a loyal administration, and as a 
consequence, the triumph of the candidates of a Copper 
head organization. When the war was finally over ; 
when a peace had been achieved — not by the cowardly 
croakings of the Tribune, nor the officious or ill-omened 
negotiations of Messrs. Greeley and Blair, but by the gal- 
lantry of Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, Farragut 



14 

Porter, and the courage and fidelity of the soldiers and 
Bailors under their command — Mr. Greeley, faithful to his 
promise to those whom he had inveigled into secession, 
rushed to Richmond for the purpose of releasing Jefierson 
Davis from imprisonment. Simultaneously he pro- 
claimed universal amnesty for rebels, including those 
wlio had conspired to hum New York, to introduce con- 
tagion into our cities, and to assassinate our President. 
He also wrote to Mr. Breckenridge, if not to other exiled 
t/aitors, inviting them to return to a country which 
they had deluged in blood, and to enjoy the protection 
of a Government which they had endeavored to destroy. 

This is a truthful record of Mr. Greeley's sentiments, 
sympathies and actions on the questions of secession, re- 
bellion, and war. It is shown clearly that he exerted a 
powerful influence in aid of secession ; that he precipi- 
tated the disastrous battle of Bull Eun ; that he pro- 
tracted the war and encouraged the enemy by reiterated 
and cowardly demands for peace ; that he released Jeff. 
Davis from imprisonment — and urged universal amnesty, 
so that Breckenridge, Slidell, Mason, etc. etc., may be re- 
stored to their seats in the Senate of the United States, 
seats which they abandoned to engage in a treasonable 
war against the Government and Union. For how 
many millions of treasure and how many thousands of lives 
Mr. Greeley is ■ responsible, I will not undertake to say. 
But I will say that, while these undeniable facts are 
fresh in my memory, he will not receive my vote. 

And now, after a few words in relation to Mr. Greeley's 
fitness for legislative duties, I will bring this long letter 
to a close. The act of our legislature authorizing the call 
of a Convention to amend our Constitution, contained a 
provision which secured the election of thirty delegates 
by a practically unanimous vote. Its object was to secure 
the services of fifteen of the ablest and most experienced 
men in either of the two great political parties of our 
State. Mr. Greeley engineered the Republican State 
Convention, and, although urged to place on the ticket 
such men as Francis Granger, Hamilton Fish, George W. 



15 

Patterson, Alexander S. Johnson, John Iv. Porter, Charles 
P. Kirklaud, Edward Dodd, John A. Kennedy, Richard 
P. Marvin, etc., several of whom had been enlight- 
ened members of the third Constitutional Convention, he 
refused to do so, preferring as colleagues, for the most 
part, a very different class of men. Hr. Greeley had 
often in conversation expressed a desire to be a delegate 
in such a convention, believing, as he said, that his ser- 
vices would be useful to the people, in that convention 
there was a decided majority of liepublicans. Mr. 
Greeley, therefore, found himself with congenial associa- 
tions and surroundings, but the first few days disclosed 
the fact that Mr. Greeley was out of his element. He 
thrust impracticable propositions prematurely upon the 
Convention, propositions which found little favor with 
men who had taken their seats with the greatest admira- 
tion for, and the highest confidence in the Editor of the 
Tribune. Mr. Greeley soon lost his temper, and long 
before the Convention brought its abortive labors to a 
conclusion he gathered up his effects, and pronouncing an 
unclerical benediction upon his colleagues, he left the 
capitol. The result was that, instead of framing a wise 
and beneficent Constitution, so much needed by the 
changed condition and circumstances of our State and 
people, several months were lost in discordant views and 
profitless debates, resulting finally in the production of an 
instrument that was rejected by the electors. That fail- 
ure, for which Mr. Greeley is so largely responsible, added 
nearly half a million of dollars to our State debt. 

If, therefore, 1 have shown that Mr. Greeley's secession 
and war records are disloyal and cowardly, and that his 
unfitness for representative duties was mischievously ap- 
parent in our Constitutional Convention, you will not, I 
feel assured, complain of my second refusal to vote for 
him. My Congressional vote will be given to James W. 
Booth, who, though not a candidate, is a Republican of 
unquestioned loyalty and patriotism. 

Very truly yours, 

THURLOW WEED. 
Hon. Thomas C. Acton. 



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